Best piece of equipment?

[Ken Nadvornick]

My Hass K-250 Intellifaucet. Worth every penny. (And it took a lot of pennies...)

Right now in August my ambient water temp just peaked for the year. Cold line is running about 67.3F. This unit is so good it can easily add the 0.7F for a perfect - and sustainable - 68.0F. And do it reliably at 0.25 gal/min flow rate. Also works equally well for the higher temps often required for color processes. Year-round tempered water bath heaven.

Have used it now for five years without a single problem. I do filter both incoming lines down to one micron to keep junk out of the unit. And I always turn off both hot and cold lines upstream, then drain pressure from the unit after each session. Probably not required, but after all those pennies, it makes me feel better...

Ken

[David A. Goldfarb]

My hot water kettle -- can't do those all-nighters without my tea!

Vaughn

It's also handy for steaming albumenized paper to loosen it up and to harden the albumen before sensitizing.

[MurrayMinchin]

A wall chart with emergence times, development factors, and resulting paper development times. I keep my working solution until it starts to run out of gas (sometimes for several months) so needed a way to compensate for temperature variations and for the first whispers of developer fatigue to get consistent results. The developer is a Glycin/Metol one with a really slow emergence time (but picks up steam later) that allows me to use the films clear edge as the emergence area, which also helps with consistency. When Life gets complicated and I can't get into the darkroom to print for a couple weeks I can pick up from exactly where I left off, or nail reprints with the same batch of working solution several weeks later.

Murray

[consumptive]

after twenty years of darkroom work i finally got a foot switch for enlarger timer. wow.

but then I picked up a beseler 35mm negatrans 35mm negative carrier and wonder how i ever lived without it.

[Mike Wilde]

A black neg, set in neg carrier. Scratch the emulsion away with a pin head. Pull the neg, and use a ruler to score with the pin from corner to corner. Bingo. An enlarger alignment tool made out of a waste prcessed bit of film leader.

Oh, and a 'darkroom' microwave on a shelf above the washing machine next door in the laundry/dry chem area. Takes cold stock solutions and stored distilled water to 20C in a flash for b&w or 38C for colour too. Most of my graduates are too tall, so a 4cup pyrex measuring cup finishes off this rig.

[Morry Katz]

The single most important piece of gear in my darkroom is the garbage can.

Morry Katz

[MurrayMinchin]

Morry - Murray says hi :)

Murray

[jmolligo]

A 4x5 film washer that I built using a Yankee film developing tank. It works so well, does not use up a lot of water for a complete wash - and, unlike the majority of my Rube Goldberg projects, the construction went totally stress free, without a hitch, and worked great the first time.

[eclarke]

My stool with wheels is right up there but my nicest luxuries are the Murray Minchin pig warmer for my trays and my Corning magnetic heated stirrer for chemistry...Evan Clarke

[Gary Holliday]

The radio with Planet Rock belting out tunes thoughout the afternoon.
Whiteboard for my short term memory.
Butchers trolley for moving around the spare enlarger when I need the space.
Safelight torch.

[jnanian]

windshield wiper

[J Ollinger]

Cabinets (both above and below) for storage. I love being able to put things away and actually find stuff, rather than simply having a couple of shelves or drawers with everything piled in.

[David Lingham]

Coomfy shoes, and a decent stool.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Here's a photo of my new shower-stall plumbing setup that I posted about up in post #10--

http://www.apug.org/forums/forum43/53114-best-piece-equipment.html#post666147

When everything's up and running, I'll post new photos in the Darkroom Portraits thread. It's now at the stage where I can process film at night. A little more lightproofing in the bathroom and the adjacent room (where the dry side is), and I should be able to process film and print during the day.

[Jim Fitzgerald]

David I have to get a set-up like that for my bathroom darkroom. Thanks for posting the shot.

I just found a new one for me. I got a set of strainers in a three pack from the $.99 store. Three different sises. They will be great for straining Amidol and the "glop" for carbon printing. They are just the right size and they were only $.99!

Jim

[David A. Goldfarb]

Jim, one thing to be aware of, if you get the Delta 1 temperature monitor unit--it looks like you can take it apart easily, if the connectors don't suit you, but you can't (except for the shutoff valve on the bottom, which I've replaced with the 4-way hose manifold). It's all sealed with permanent Loctite or something. It's garden hose connector in, and garden hose connector out. The only specialized part in it is the thermometer dial, which screws into a 1/2" IPS female pipe fitting, so if you could get that from the source, you could build it any way you want. The brand on the dial is "Powers Process Controls."

[JBrunner]

The dark.

[jmcd]

Valoy II enlarger for 35mm—always a pleasure to use

[Jim Fitzgerald]

David thanks for the info on the fixture. One more thing to get. Somehow it never ends!

Jim